Cornish Students Youth Angrily Protest Something

Actually both of you are incorrect for multiple reasons. The bulding has had structural problems for years, yet because of upholding contracts, it could not be shut down. It was not just decided out of nowhere that the building was falling apart. And the reason the "shenanigans" made you vacate the building was because it is UNSAFE. If you look at the building on Virginia and Terry, there is scaffholding surrounding it so when the pieces start to fall off, they won't hit innocent bystanders on the street. The owner of the bulding did everything he could to save that building, but unfortunately due to poor construction on the sub-contracters part, it can not be salvaged. If something had happened to Cornish students while in that unsafe building, you can bet they would have sued. Seems to me like they were going to sue either way, so pointing the finger at the owner of the building is not only uncalled for, it is ridiculous.

The corporation did not file for bankruptcy, nor does it owe $4.1 million to Cornish. Cornish is stating their damages, including the cost to relocate, are $4.1 million, which is absurd considering they wanted the building torn down in the first place and would have had to move regardless. They don't want the building, they want the property for their greedy, money-hungry plans of taking over the Denny area.

You are right, though, in one respect, "a deal is a deal", so when Cornish admitted in court that they broke their end of the deal but still want to be compensated, and the Judge agreed with them, they are admitting default on the contract. As far as I know, a written contract should be the final say, but since Cornish has done such a fantastic job of playing the victim, a contract no longer holds its validity. Apparently, laws don't matter to people that think schools are above everyone else.

Finally, I think that anyone that is interested in this case needs to educate themself on BOTH sides of the conflict, as opposed to reading a one-sided article on SouthLakeUnion.com that takes bits and pieces of the truth to make an article more appealing to its readers.

Lori, you are correct in the way you describe the situation. I was a student at Cornish who used the basement part of that building. It was a scene shop, by the way, not a storage facility. The owners of the building were nothing but trouble as far as we could tell. Eventually, their shenanigans forced us to move our shop for the second time in 3 years.

It sucks that the economy is bad, but buying buildings is not some mom and pop small business. A deal's a deal, it doesn't matter if you're a family, a corporation, or a school. You pay the money when the money's due.

And stay off the lawn.

Okay, let me see if I get this straight.

The building is owned by a partnership called 1000 Virginia LP (apparently a family-owned company). The Partnership receives low-income tax credits to provide low-income housing on the top floors through 2022 (this transfers in ownership).

Cornish was renting the bottom floors to use for storage for the performing arts center (at a low rent because the Partnership wanted to support the school). Cornish also made a deal with the Partnership to buy the building for $3 million (again, at a lower-than-valued price because the Partnership wanted to support the school). Cornish plans on using the top floors as work/live lofts at a low rent in accordance with the low-income housing rules.

It sounds like the sale was supposed to happen in 2007, but the Partnership did not sell it. Instead, they noticed that the building had structural problems, and had all tenants vacate the unsafe premises. They decided that since the building had problems, they were not going to sell it to the school.

However, the deal was already made, and Cornish was entirely willing to take the building as-is. It also sounds like Cornish had gone ahead and put money towards improvements to the building.

Since the Partnership had backed out on the business deal, Cornish sued them for breach of contract in January of 2008. In response, the Partnership accused Cornish of violating its provisions (and it sounds like the fact that Cornish paid to have improvements done to building is the thing they are decrying). The court ended up ruling in favor of Cornish and ordering the Partnership to sell the property as agreed.

Instead, the Partnership filed for bankruptcy, which puts the sale on hold. And interestingly, one of the biggest amounts owed is $4.1 million, to Cornish!

So... a company makes a business deal, backs out of it, and expects everyone else to use the same non-businesslike, personal and emotional reasoning as they use so they can get away with it?

In regards to the "unlawful" spending towards building improvements that Cornish made, it's actually not uncommon for a buyer to start paying for some integral work once the contract is signed, especially since the building was already vacated. I don't know the whole details of this, of course, but the court that handled the lawsuit apparently considered it fair.

Just to clarify, we are not Cornish students. Some of us are members of the family being sued and some of us are concerned friends and supporters of this cause. We apologize if any Cornish students were offended by our rallying yesterday, but we would like you to be as informed as possible since this is YOUR money and the money of countless donations for "education" going into this lawsuit. We will be continuing to voice our outrage at Cornish's blatant lies and wrongdoings towards my family and their business. If you would like to support our cause or receive more information please email anticornish@gmail.com. Thank you.

Ah, yes, that looks very much like the pertinent doings I was ignorant of! I knew it must be something important if they were willing to stand out in the cold and rain about it.

Near as I can figure out, they're talking about this: http://www.thesouthlake.com/2009/03/22/cornish-caught-in-legal-mess-over-property-acquisition